Curing tuberculosis today
Currently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a “short-course” TB combination therapy
that includes a full 6 months treatment with rifampicin. The combination therapy often includes bulky
tablets and can cause severe nausea and other side effects.
The introduction of a powerful new drug that would allow the treatment duration to be shortened would
substantially diminish the risks of failure of treatment, relapse of the disease and increased prevalence
of drug-resistance bacteria associated with TB sufferers who fail to comply with the current therapy.
This new highly potent drug candidate for the treatment of tuberculosis – PBTZ 169 – has been discovered
by the ongoing collaboration between the Global Health Institute at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology, Lausanne – CH) and the A.N. Bach Institute for Biochemistry of the Russian Academy
of Science, Moscow.
The research and development underpinning PBTZ 169 is provided by More Medicines
for Tuberculosis (MM4TB) with support from the European Commission and
the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
However, due to a significant lack of funding, financial-philanthropic support as a bridge funding is sought
to demonstrate the efficacy of this new drug and to further attract public-private partnership in the future.